Submitted by rickeyre on
"If I was running Al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats."
- John Howard, interview with Laurie Oakes, Sunday, 11.2.07
Submitted by rickeyre on
President Yahya Jammeh of The Gambia announced last month that he can cure HIV/AIDS. Apparently, it involves a mixture of herbs and bananas.
IRIN takes up the story.
Submitted by rickeyre on
We all know that businesses that use MP3 encoding for commercial purposes have to pay a licence fee to Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the owners of the MP3 patent. Yesterday, a US court awarded Alcatel-Lucent SA one and a half billion American dollars in damages to be paid by Microsoft for MP3 patent violation.
Associated Press takes up the story.
Submitted by rickeyre on
Former president of the Australian Medical Association, former member of the ALP, the former Education Minister who tried to claim that the story of Simpson and his donkey was true, Brendan Nelson MD is well on the way to becoming Australia's worst Defence Minister ever.
But amid all the doublespeak this week in reaction to the British and Danish troop withdrawals from Iraq, Nelson, who last week rubberstamped John Howard's whim to send more troops to Iraq, Nelson has trivialised the Second World War by saying that Australia's role in Iraq is as important as the Kokoda Track campaign against the Japanese in 1942.
Submitted by rickeyre on
"...you know have to accept that in our country we have our laws and we just administer our laws and Australia is traditionally a very egalitarian county. Therefore our laws apply to all people. We don't have exemptions from our laws for different categories of people. That's just the way we work in this country, that's just the way our country is and it will probably always be like that."
Submitted by rickeyre on
Why is it that the Howard Government's best policies only come forth during an election year? Malcolm Turnbull's plan, announced yesterday, to legislate most incandescent light bulbs out of domestic use by 2009-10 is a good one, even though it does little more than scratch the surface of the fight again carbon emission.
Turnbull's ministerial press release can be seen here in PDF format. The key number in Turnbull's statement is the estimate of an annual reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of 4 million tonnes by 2015. Wikipedia quotes UN figures giving Australia's CO2 emissions in 2002 at 356.3 million tonnes.
Submitted by rickeyre on
1978: Wran's Our Man
1988: Barrie Unsworth - He's Good Value
2007: More to do but heading in the right direction
One of these won in a landslide, one lost in a landslide, one is expected to win for the simple reason that his opponent is worse.
Submitted by rickeyre on
CLIMATE CHANGE: Islands Could Fall Off the Map
- BERLIN, Feb 17 (Tierramérica) - Sylt, the largest of Germany's Frisian islands, in the North Sea, lost at least 800,000 cubic metres of sand from its beaches in the last two months, because of heavy storms and flooding that have marked the northern hemisphere autumn and winter seasons.
Submitted by rickeyre on
Nine days before the nosharama at Luna Park Sydney celebrating Australia's ODI legacy, the team suffered its first ten-wicket loss ever in Wellington. Ever. That's 36 years of ever since the Dawn of Ever.
Submitted by rickeyre on
The awards started earlier than I expected today, but it's good to see in the early results that the academy is recognising up and oming youngsters like Peter Frampton (best pop instrumental album) and George Benson (best pop instrumental performance). Tony Bennett and Stevie Wonder (nomination for best pop collaboration with vocals) will surely be a shoe-in.
More comments through the afternoon
